The Greatest History Never Told

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A side effect of Hollywood History, these are time periods that rarely, if ever, appear in fiction. Maybe the writers/executives/etc. aren't aware of them. Maybe they fear the ignorance of the viewers. Whatever the reason, mentioning these time periods will leave the audience confused over some details and the history buffs cheering.

Some periods really lend themselves to fiction - there's just something compelling about Ancient Egypt and Those Wacky Nazis that means it's not surprising how often they show up. However, after a while it gets a little baffling why equally fascinating periods get left out. Ancient China was as imperial and decadent as Rome, with the technological progress of Renaissance Europe and ships the size of small castles, but where's their summer blockbuster?

This page is intended to be a resource of particularly interesting periods almost-forgotten, in the hope that they will get more exposure over time, if only to the wiki.

Time Periods are roughly organized into the following:

  1. Pre-History: The time before the written word, before civilization, farming, etc., and thus far too boring to depict. Older Than Dirt.
  2. Ancient History: Older Than Dirt or Older Than Feudalism. If you aren't one of the 4 main civilizations, you didn't exist. See below for more details.
  3. Middle History: Older Than Print. Typically depicted in Medieval Stasis, despite many flourishing contemporary empires.
  4. Modern History: Older Than Steam, Older Than Radio, etc.

Just some notes:

  • If you know of any works related to a given time period, please create a list under the related folder if one doesn't already exist and then add the works.
  • If a wiki page exists for the time period, please link it in.
  • If you know something about the period, and know that it isn't featured somewhere else in the wiki, please add the information to the text for that time period.
    • If said text becomes big enough, it may warrant moving to a more isolated spot on the page, such as the example Roman Empire under Christianity below. Putting it under an apppropriate level header will also keep it manageable.
    • If said text becomes too big, recommend it as a YKTTW, using the information in the folder as a starting point. If you are successful, remove all but the basic information from this page and place it on the new one. Ensure a wiki link is available for anyone who wishes to follow up on it.

Creator Provincialism can result in a specific time period having a lot of coverage in the media of a particular region and being virtually unknown outside that area.

If you know anyone looking to do a Troper Work or Fanfic, but who needs a setting, point them to this page.

Contrast Hollywood History, Did Not Do the Research, They Just Didn't Care, and many others. Not to be confused with The Greatest Story Never Told.

Examples of The Greatest History Never Told include:

Pre-History

  • After the dinosaurs died out, but before the ice ages and way before humans began migrating. The entire span between the dinosaur extinction and the ice age (a span of some 63 million years full of many prehistoric animals) do not show up in fiction that often, whether magical-based, time-travel, science-based, etc.
  • Although the Mesozoic period as a whole is rather well-represented, the Triassic period is left mostly forgotten. The mid-Jurassic and the late-Cretaceous are where most Stock Dinosaurs come from.
  • You don't get much Prehistory before the dinosaurs, either. You'll never see an eccentric billionaire extracting fossil DNA from coal deposits to create Carboniferous Park.
    • Anime and Manga
      • Ponyo takes place in contemporary times, but much of the aquatic sealife present during the abnormal-seas portions of the film are intended to be from the Devonian period (416–359.2mya), where most of the planet was submerged (which figures in a major plot point). Shown Their Work indeed.
      • The Nontolma, an undersea-dwelling precursor race from Keroro Gunsou, seem to take the form of Anomalocaris, an arthropod from the Cambrian period.
  • The Ice Age itself is pretty thin as well.


Ancient History (3,000 B.C. - 476 A.D.)

Hollywood History acknowledges some vaguely-recognisable form of:

  • The Grecian city-states, primarily Athens and Sparta
  • Rome
  • Egypt

However, it ignores:

The Mediterranean

Pretty much any civilisation predating Classical Greece:

"Now I am no student, of ancient culture.
Before I talk, I should read a book.
But there's one thing, that I do know.
There's a lot of ruins in Mesopotamia."


The Americas

  • Outside of a few offhand references, there isn't a whole lot of mention of the Aztec civilization; or them actually being conquered. (Naturally, you can bet they'd all forget that if Cortes actually had his way, the Aztecs and Tlaxcalans would have been treated as Spanish Nobility). See Mayincatec for examples, of various levels of historical accuracy.
  • Native Americans before the coming of the Europeans.[1] To be fair not much is known about ancient North America, due to a general lack of ancient ruins or written history to examine.
  • God(s) bless your heart if you somehow find a story about Mesoamerican or South American civilizations besides the Aztec, or even about the Aztecs prior to the Conquest. So we don't see much about the Incas, and specially not from civilizations that predate the Post-Classical Mesoamerican Period like the Toltec, Mixtec, Classic Maya, Zapotec, or Monte Alban. Likewise, a long list of lowland and pre-Inca South American civilizations are routinely ignored.
    • Apocalypto is about the Maya and it is terribly inaccurate, but does have dialogue entirely in Mayan. For starters, the Mayans are portrayed in warrior-like terms closer to the Aztec and the end has serious Unfortunate Implications, but ah well.
    • Aztec is one of the most notable examples of a novel about the Aztec before Cortez, even if he appears at the end.
    • The Emperor's New Groove: Vaguely takes place in the Inca Empire.

India

The Indus Valley civilization flourished for some 600 years from 2500-1900 BCE, but their writing is still undeciphered, limiting what archaeologists can learn. As early as 2000 BCE many regions of South Asia entered the "Iron Age." A great many cultural and scientific achievements originated in South Asia, and yet very little is depicted about its history.


The History of Rome

Even with Rome, it seems that all stories are set in the late Republic or early-to-mid Empire. You hardly see;

  • The Roman Kingdom (whose oversight is Older Than They Think—even the later Roman sources that survive today are unreliable and heavily mythologised).
    • In Gladiator, a senator describes Rome as being founded as a Republic, rather than a kingdom. Word of God is that this statement was incorrect within the film itself.
  • The Pyrrhic War
  • The Punic Wars.
    • Again in Gladiator, the Punic wars are invoked. One of the Gladiator Games is a recreation of the Battle of Zama. Maximus played the Punic side, and defies history by winning.
  • The Christian Roman Empire (Not to be confused with the Holy Roman Empire—Charlemagne et al). In the last days of The Roman Empire, Christianity was on the rise. Fear of persecution, invasions from outsiders, and the quickly deteriorating interior was forcing the empire to give up more and more power to the religious figures and the land owners. In order to try and stabilize the empire, it was divided into two sections: East and West. The East would eventually become the Byzantine Empire, and would survive for a long while. The west would continue to break apart and enter into Medieval Stasis for the next 500 years.


Other Ancient History Examples

  • Pre-Qin Dynasty China rarely shows up unless regarding Confucius (The "Spring and Autumn" era)
  • The Hellenistic world is a fascinating era of scientific advances, syncretic cultures, the beginnings of the non-theistic model of the universe, war on a massive scale, treachery, debauchery, terror, beauty, the first massive clash of monotheism and polytheism, and, unless you count Rome Total War, a complete media blackout.
    • Thais of Athens by the Soviet writer Ivan Yefremov is set in the early Hellenistic period at the times of Alexander the Great. Originally published in 1973, it was first translated into English in 2011.
    • While famous for 'Gates of Fire' (Thermopylae), Steven Pressfield has also written a couple of books about Alexander the Great. Special mention goes to 'The Afghan Campaign', for being set entirely in Central Asia and for making an excellent read alongside the then-current Afghan War.
    • Christian Cameron has written the Tyrant series, dealing with the latter part of Alexander's reign and the subsequent Successor conflicts. Even the first book, set while Alexander is still alive, is mostly set on the Black Sea coast and deals with the politics of Greek colonies, Macedonian expansion and the Scythian tribes who live there.
  • When it comes to Ancient Egypt it's almost always portrayed as an Anachronism Stew of both the Old and New Kingdoms, where you might see for example the Pyramids of Giza being built during the New Kingdom. Also, King Tutankhamen gets severely overplayed despite what a minor pharaoh he actually was (it actually says something that his tomb was the one that got overlooked by looters for over 2000 years). Most of Ancient Egypt's 3000 year history is ignored.
  • Ancient Africa, other than Egypt, didn't exist as far as entertainment media believes.
    • And this is despite Africa having had great civilizations, such as the Ethiopian empire. (little known fact: Andromeda of Greek Mythology, despite her frequent Race Lift, was Ethiopian; likewise, the Egyptian Hathor may have originated there too.)
  • The entire history of the Byzantine Empire,
  • The Great Persian War (AD 602-628). An epic 26-year struggle between Persia and the Roman Empire that started when Shah Khosrau II declared war on Rome to avenge the assassination of his benefactor Emperor Maurice by the tyrannical usurper Phocas. Emperor Heraclius rises up and overthrows Phocas and leads a massive campaign to drive out the Persians, who have conquered half of the Roman Empire. Why is this ignored? Perhaps, in addition to the general ignorance on the Byzantine Romans and the Sassanid Persians, is the futility of the entire war, as just a few years after the end of the war, the Arab Caliphate shows up and conquers Persia and most of the Roman Empire.
  • The ancient Celtic Peoples -- Gaels, Welsh, Britons, or Gauls—mostly show up as a stock Barbarian Tribe for the Romans to fight. There's a limited amount of French and British work depicting them, particularly their resistance to the invasions of Julius Caesar and, later, Claudius.
    • Comic Books
      • Asterix the Gaul is probably the most prominent.
    • Film
      • Fiction about King Arthur (such as the 2004 movie), when set in the right time period, will cover this.


Middle Ages (500 - 1500 A.D.)

  • Due to Medieval Stasis, many cultures other than the Vikings during this age aren't shown until The Crusades and The High Middle Ages. Never mind that technology and history weren't static during this period, especially in the much-ignored Arab and South Asian civilizations of the period.
  • If you want really ignored, try the Khmer Empire from the same time frame.
  • The Carolingian period of the Holy Roman Empire
  • The Ottonian period of the Holy Roman Empire
  • The Empire of Mali—maybe the most powerful State of the 11th Century due to its gold mines
  • And poor old Central Asia only began to exist in 2006 when a hairy man donned a mankini. Well, prior to this they were ruled by the mighty Genghis Khan for many hundreds of years, up until becoming the stock "screwed up place run by warlords to provide some necessary tension between the US and Soviets/Russians for the initiation of ass-kicking" if Berlin, the Middle East or some ultra secretly secret new technology was already booked out.
    • There is Genghis Khan, of course, and the Conqueror series. The real ghost period is after Genghis Khan - the only reason for Borat being set in Kazakhstan is its current status as The Unpronounceable (if you don't try very hard) Throwaway Country no-one knows anything about.
    • According to some historians (e.g. Peter Turchin) Central Asia was more important as a centre of civilization than either Europe or China—the only reason they were perceived as savages early on is that Europeans and Chinese kept encroaching on their territory, and they logically tried to defend it!
  • And the Indian sub-continent definitely didn't exist prior to the arrival of the British.
    • For that matter you only get a look at Euro-Indian matters once "the Raj" was an established fact. You never get to see the early part of Anglo/Indian relations and it's never mentioned that the Portuguese and French were there for quite some time before there was a British presence at all.
    • Literature
      • Jahanara, Princess of Princesses, a fictionalized diary of the real princess Jahanara (daughter of Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal) takes place in 1627, around the time the British are first exploring India.
  • South East Asia doesn't exist prior to the Vietnam War or, if you are very very lucky, the arrival of European traders. "Asia" then means feudal China, samurais, ninjas and kung fu. Not a lot of Hollywood movies are set "now" in SE Asia either (at least ones that don't think the whole area is mired down in some form of guerrilla war), though countries in the region do have fairly active local film industries.
    • There are a few involving western backpackers; The Beach springs to mind.
  • The Islamic Golden Age of the 9th to 13th centuries doesn't get much play outside of the Crusades. Successive Persian empires are largely absent also.
    • Literature
      • Louis L'Amour did write one book (intended to be the first of a series, but unfortunately he died before completing any others) taking place in the 12th century. The protagonist lives in an old Roman house in Brittany, travels through the Moorish Empire (including Cadiz and Cordoba), Paris (where he remarks on how backwards its inhabitants seem compared to the Moors, especially with their lack of books), the Russian steppe (where the merchant caravan he is traveling with is attacked by Pechenegs, a tribe of Slavic nomads that was renowned for their fierce fighting at that time), and Constantinople, ending in modern-day Iran and the Fortess of Alamut (home of the original assassins). At the end of the book, he plans to travel even farther east to modern-day India. All in all, the book is a fascinating look at civilizations and a time period rarely even mentioned by other authors (or, for that matter, in a world history class).
  • The Hundred Years War
    • Film
    • Literature
      • Timeline
      • Bernard Cornwell visits the earlier portion of the period in his The Grail Quest trilogy, around the time of the Battle of Crécy, and again, around sixty years later, in Azincourt, which focuses on the eponymous Battle of Agincourt.
      • Joan of Arc is a pretty popular character. On the other hand, neither Edward III or the Black Prince appear very often.
        • Both Edward III and the Black Prince appear in the aforementioned Grail Quest series.
      • World Without End
    • Theatre
      • The Hundred Years War is partially dealt with in Shakespeare's History plays, especially Henry VI Part I
  • The Thirty Years' War
  • Most stories set in Tudor times take place under the reigns of Elizabeth I or Henry VIII, while Henry VII, Queen Mary I, and Edward VI are rarely touched upon.
    • Mary's reign is sometimes touched on, but usually to establish the social, religious, and political background of an Elizabethan piece, rather than as the focus in and of themselves.
    • Literature
      • Patience, Princess Catherine by Carolyn Meyer starts in 1501 when Catherine of Aragon goes to marry Arthur, but instead marries Henry VIII.
      • Nine Days a Queen: The Short Life and Reign of Lady Jane Grey by Ann Rinaldi is about the 9 day reign of Lady Jane Grey, the cousin of Edward VI. She reigned between Edward VI and Mary I.
    • Live-Action TV
    • Theatre
  • Eastern Europe. Any of it, really before the breakup of the Soviet Union (though it's mostly a shifting mass of Throwaway Countries even then). Renaissance Dalmatia? Medieval Vienna? The Austro-Hungarian empire?
    • Literature
      • There's the Sienkiewicz Trilogy, a three-book epic set in 17th Century Poland and Lithuania. Of course, its author was Polish.
      • Sienkiewicz's The Knights of the Cross takes place around the time of the Battle of Grunwald (1410). In general this time period gets a lot of attention in Polish literature and film but is not really known outside of Poland.
        • Poland-Lithuania deserves special mention, as it was ahead of its time politically (it influenced the American Founding Fathers) and its history is filled with wars, invasions, and generally having the odds stacked against it.


Modern History (1500 A.D. - current)

  • Includes:
    • People (re-)discovering science;
    • People going on mighty quests of imperial missions, which in turn give recognition to many other civilizations.

United States - Articles of Confederation

America just came into existence. 13 Colonies, now one nation. But after fighting for independence, many were not ready to give up their well deserved sovereignty, even in the name of national defense. The Articles of Confederation was a solution to this.

Under it, each state volunteered to help out the national government, if the state felt it was needed. Taxes, military forces and enforcement of national laws (if there were any) are all policies the states choose to follow or not. In addition, each State was allowed its own currency, which made trading a nightmare and with no executive branch, the national government was useless. They were successful with one, and only one, thing: handling the Northwest Ordinance, the first national territory that wasn't part of any one state.

Many saw this as a problem, and organized the Constitutional Convention to come up with suggestions on how to fix it. Instead, they came up our current constitution and that is another story.

  • The United States post-revolution and pre-Civil War is rarely covered in the media.
    • "North and South" by John Jakes takes place during the two decades preceding Fort Sumter.


World War I

The problem with World War I is that World War II has Nazis, which makes it a straight Good vs Evil fight and therefore more popular with writers. And even within World War I, most media concentrate on the British Sector of the Western Front and, occasionally, Gallipoli, and ignore everything else entirely. You'd almost be forgiven for wondering why they called it a "world war" at all, since it was apparently just Brits fighting Germans in France...

Examples of The Greatest History Never Told include:
  • One will never hear of Indian and Nepalese soldiers, and Russia disappears between 1914 to 1917, when it is mentioned they surrendered. Oh, and Arabia doesn't get much coverage. Arabs and oil, what's that? And everyone forgets that the countries all owned colonies, leading to fights in various parts of Africa.
    • The "cinematic novel" series with a nearly untranslatable to English title "Смерть на брудершафт"[2] by the author of the Erast Fandorin series is set between 1914 and 1917 and revolves around espionage and counter-espionage on the Eastern front.
  • The last book of the popular Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery features Anne's daughter Rilla as the protagonist. The book deals with what was going on in Canada for the families that sent loved ones overseas. It's a very moving piece that shows war from the point of view of those that want to do whatever they can, no matter how small, to help out the cause.
    • Rilla of Ingleside is a unique case in that it is the only Canadian novel written from a women's perspective about the First World War by a contemporary.
  • You'll occasionally get some inkling that the French armed forces may have been involved in some capacity...
    • Literature]]
      • The Boy Allies discusses some American teenagers fighting for the French before the US entry.
      • Also not to be forgotten, All Quiet on the Western Front.
  • Also ignored is the Spanish Flu, one of the worst Pandemics in human history.
    • Anime and Manga
    • Film
      • In a flashback to George's childhood from Its a Wonderful Life, Mr. Gower's telegram says that his son died of influenza. The Spanish Flu isn't mentioned explicitly, but the fact that the telegram is dated "May 3, 1919" makes it pretty clear.
    • Literature
      • Twilight mentions it as part of why Edward became a vampire, which technically makes it part of a major pop-culture phenomenon of the 2000s-2010s.
    • Live Action TV
      • Prominently featured in an episode of Downton Abbey - only one episode, mind, but the series tends to Time Skip several months between each one. Used for a Tonight Someone Dies plot, as several major characters contract it.
  • Also ignored is the entire Middle Eastern front against the Ottoman Empire. Then again, that very front was actually relatively lively when compared to the Western Front and wouldn't make a good material for a War Is Hell theme so prevalent when it comes to World War I. Of course, one problem is some of the controversy surrounding this time in the Ottoman Empire, and that modern Turkey really doesn't like talking about certain things too much detail, namely the fate of its Christian minorities. So writers usually won't touch it.
  • Rumor has it there was also a front between Austria and Italy.
    • Literature
      • Which just involved Ernest Hemingway driving an ambulance, drinking, bedding a nurse, drinking some more, driving an ambulance some more, and reflecting upon the futility of war.
  • Nobody yet mentioned the conflict with which this war began in the first place: between Austria and Serbia. Or the event which triggered it: the assassination of the Austrian crown prince.
    • Film
      • A little-known Made for TV Disney Original Movie, Principal Takes a Holiday, which briefly mentions the assassination in one scene. The same movie also mentions the American economic recession in the 80s. For a Disney Original, it was surprisingly intelligent.
    • Video Games


World War Two

Although World War II is done to death in pop culture, a number of fronts are rarely ever mentioned.

Examples of The Greatest History Never Told include:
  • Notably, the battles between Japan and China.
  • The Polish-Soviet War and Polish September Campaign also deserve better coverage than they get.
  • Same about the fall of Western Europe in spring 1940. It is rarely depicted besides some French TV films, and these tend to focus on the exodus only (defeat announced on the radio, people fleeing massively on the roads as far as they can while some German planes are shooting at them). It always seems like the French and British forces didn't fight at all, which is entirely false.
  • Generally speaking, the period 1939-early 1942 (except for the attack on Pearl Harbor) tends to be neglected in film, for two reasons. One, this was before the US became involved directly, thus not getting much interest from Hollywood. The second reason is that it was only in 1942 that the Allies (including the Soviets) actually started winning significant victories and keeping ground, unlike the back and forth in North Africa.
    • The major exception is the Battle Of Britain.
  • The North African front. It seems to have everything one can desire what with exotic cities, no pesky civilians wandering around the battlefield except for Bedouin who can take care of themselves, and even a climate that is more fun to contemplate (Libyan desert dust sounds less unpleasant to fight in than French mud). And lots of potential Scenery Porn. And even some Real Life Badass characters who might have been made by a movie. Plus a Worthy Opponent Foe Yay kind of spirit that is a throwback to Ye Goode Olde Days.
    • Film
      • Patton
      • The Desert Rats, a 1953 war film about the World War II siege of Tobruk
      • The English Patient,
      • Ice Cold in Alex
      • Raid on Rommel
      • And The Desert Fox. North Africa is actually pretty heavily covered.
      • Not to mention a little film called Casablanca.
    • Live-Action TV
      • The Rat Patrol, an American TV program (1966-1968)
  • Burma, which earned the nickname 'The Forgotten War' even while fighting was still going on.
    • Film
      • The Bridge on the River Kwai.
      • Objective: Burma!, in which American troops parachute in to destroy a Japanese base, then face a difficult journey to safety. A particular exemplar of this trope (and America Wins the War) for downplaying British involvement in a mostly British and Australian campaign. Released in the UK in 1945, it was withdrawn a week later after anger from veterans, the military and (it was said) Winston Churchill himself.
    • More prominent in recent generations of Britons than in older ones; for some those generations, it is Burma, rather than Vietnam or the Pacific Theatre, which constitutes the archetypal "jungle war".
  • The Italian Front on the other hand...The Italian campaign also vanishes from even history books after the fall of Rome and the Normandy invasion. It's as if the rest of the country ceased to exist for a year... all the fighting up to the borders of Switzerland, Austria and France gets ignored.
    • Comic Books
      • A comic called 'D-Day Dodgers' is set during this period, and references how the whole campaign became just a sideshow.
    • Film
      • Anzio is almost the only movie.
      • The Audie Murphy Story may happen in Italy, but it's not made obvious.
      • It's not all that uncommon: The English Patient and Life Is Beautiful. Although none of these movies focus on the combat, suggesting that other aspects of Italy are what appeal to filmmakers.
      • The Tuskeegee Airmen tells the story of how the titular squadron escorted the B-17s of the 15th Air Force from its base in Ramitelli to bombing missions in Germany and eastern Europe. Since most of the action takes place in the air, one could argue that the fighting in Italy itself was bypassed, but the movie also covers the squadron's role in the conquest of Sicily and Italy as well.
    • Literature
      • Catch-22,
      • A Thread of Grace is set primarily during the eighteen months between Italy's surrender and V-E Day, covering various factions in the former Nazi-allied, now Nazi-occupied nation.
    • Video Games
      • It does feature in a few of the Call of Duty games, however, usually depicting the notorious Battle of Monte Cassino.
  • The fact that some seven million Slavs (mostly Poles, Czechs, Russian P.O.W.s and other), Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally handicapped people and political dissidents as well as six million Jews died in the Holocaust is hardly ever mentioned.
    • Live-Action TV
      • One exception to this is the 70s miniseries Holocaust in which these groups (and the identifying badges they were forced to wear) are all mentioned and Gypsies are briefly shown in one camp scene.
  • Any coverage of the battles in Crete and Greece?
    • Literature
      • There's The Guns of Navarone.
      • Some of Alistair MacLean's other books also take place in Greece or other parts of Eastern Europe.
      • Captain Correlli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières (and its film adaptation).
  • The Russo-Finnish War (both of them) might have gotten more play if the Finns hadn't been on the side of the Nazis. Otherwise, it seems made for TV, especially the Winter War which easily lends itself to a David Versus Goliath story.
    • Film
      • There are a number of Finnish films, as well as Russian ones such as The Cuckoo, where one Finnish and one Russian soldier argue over the hospitality of a Sami woman.
  • The Russian Front of World War II has the same disadvantage as the Thirty Years War. The main contenders were Evil Versus Evil, everyone else was just trodden on and so on. Whereas in the West it doesn't quite feel that way to contemplate it.
    • Film
      • A Time to Love and a Time to Die.
      • Cross of Iron
      • Come and See by Klimov.
      • The Liberation series of Soviet films of the 'Great Patriotic War' covers the Soviet-versus-Nazi conflict (and sometimes mentions that others were fighting the Germans as well).
      • There are a number of films about Stalingrad, particularly, erm, Stalingrad or Enemy at the Gates.
        • 'Stalingrado' by a spanish band Híbrido, bizarrely enough.
  • The German campaign in the Balkans, and the Yugoslav, Greek and Albanian resistance movements which came after it.
    • Film
      • Force 10 from Navarone is set in wartime Yugoslavia.
  • Many people forget the German presence in Greenland, where a group of 15 Greenlanders were able to fend off the Germans on dogsled.
  • Also forgotten is the fact that over 130,000 Japanese in America and Canada were persecuted and put into concentration camps because it was feared they were spies for the Japanese government after Pearl Harbor.
    • Film
    • Literature
      • Obasan by Joy Kogawa.
      • Under the Blood-Red Sun and Eyes of the Emperor by Graham Salisbury
      • Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata
      • The Moon Bridge" by Marcia Savin
      • Snow Falling on Cedars is set during the 1950s, but the backstory for several main characters revolves around the fallout of the forced internment of the Japanese.
  • The Soviet-Japanese War of 1945 never gets used, maybe for fear of Ending Fatigue.
    • Masaki Kobayashi's Ningen no joken/The human condition trilogy: the protagonist winds up in a Soviet POW camp after being captured during this conflict.


Other

  • The first half of the Eighteenth Century
  • The French and Indian War.
    • In fact, the whole French colonization of North America.
    • Literature
      • Look to the Hills: The Diary of Lozette Moreau is about a French slave girl and her owner who go to Canada at the beginning of the French and Indian War.
      • The "Paul Gallant" series by Victor Suthren is a short series of Wooden Ships and Iron Men stories about a French marine officer in the mid-to-late 1740s, originally sailing from the colony that became Nova Scotia once the English conquered it.
    • Web Comics
  • The Scottish Second Wars of Independence, the Armee Ecosse of the 15th century (pretty much the entire Scottish army is hired by the King of France) the Scots who fought in the Wars of the Roses, the battle of Flodden.... For some reason, there seems to be this belief that Scottish history goes straight from Bannockburn (1314) to the battle of Culloden (1746), which misses out the intervening 432 years)
  • The Congo War (aka "Africa's World War", aka the deadliest human conflict in post-WWII history) is surprisingly obscure both in fiction and in real life - it was hardly ever mentioned on the news, for some reason, despite involving eight countries and killing 5 and a half million people.
  • The Paris Commune of 1871. 72 days and a rather brutal ending. It would create a lovely backdrop for a story along the lines of the movie Gangs of New York. Admittedly, there is The Voice of the People by Jean Vautrin, but there seriously needs to be a movie or more historical fiction about this little episode of history.
  • There is disappointingly little on the Boxer Rebellion, given every great power in the world put aside their differences and united to save Europeans and Chinese Christians from persecution.
  • The Taiping Rebellion! One of the largest and bloodiest conflicts in history, led by a guy claiming to be the younger Chinese brother of Jesus Christ. Caused more deaths than the First World War. Number of movies about it? Zero.
    • The Chinese film "The Warlords"
  • There was the Quasi War, between the United States and the Republic of France. Seems Hollywood doesn't see a market for a movie where the U Sof A gets to go beat up the French. Overshadowed by the French Revolutionary Wars.
  • Speaking of pirates, no love for the War of 1812? Not even the Battle of New Orleans? Pirates, Choctaws, Arkansas flatboat men and Tennessee Davy Crockett types curb-stomping the best army in the world despite being outnumbered nearly 3:1. Yet, other than Eric Flint's Rivers of War, not a lot.
  • The Opium Wars
    • Film
      • A lot of kung fu movies take place during this period in China, though outside of that it's virtually unknown.
    • Literature
      • Spring Pearl: The Last Flower in the discontinued Girls of Many Lands collection is about a teenage girl during this time.
  • The Russo-Japanese War: Rather embarrassing for both participants, who moved toward the much needed strategical alliance before it. Instead, Russia got a major prestige and morale fall (with well-known results), while Japan was isolated and eventually forced to enter World War II (with well-known results). The reason isn't something anyone is proud of either.
    • Film
      • The Japanese film 'The Battle of the Japan Sea' covers the naval battle of Tsushima (1905).
      • It is mentioned in the Biopic Nicholas and Alexandra, which covers the reign of Czar Nicholas II, and includes some of the outrage on Russia's home-front at their loss in the war.
    • Literature
      • The only big attempt to describe it on Russian was Tsushima by Novikov-Priboi, released in Soviet times and mostly telling about how crappy was the Empire Before.
        • Oh, and there's also Rasplata by former imperial russian captain Semyonov, which managed to be even more obnoxious in painting the exact opposite picture.
      • Why, there are also several novels by Valentin Pikul, such as Wealth and Cruisers. Pikul's novel Wealth is this trope squared, since it describes the most obscure front of that war, namely Kamchatkan guerrilla resistance against Japanese landings.
      • The Russo-Japanese war was done by Sidney Reily Ace of Spies. It was a "nice little war" from the days when everyone considered each other a Worthy Opponent. It just got overlooked.
  • The Mexican-American War of 1846-1848.
    • Remember the Alamo! (Technically part of the 1836 Texan War of Independence from Mexico, but still counts as an example since most people don't know anything about the entire period).
    • Literature
      • The Blue and the Gray had some coverage of this war.
      • One Man's Hero with Tom Berringer covered the St. Patricks Batallion.
  • America's Old Northwest
    • Literature
      • The Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper, which include a little story called Last of the Mohicans, cover this setting (which was a main contributor to the French and Indian War as well).
  • The Independence Wars of Latin America
  • Also, the 1910s in Britain. No longer Victorian, but not yet World War One.
    • Film
    • Literature
      • The Children's Book, by A. S. Byatt, covers this decade, as well as the two preceding it.
      • The Secret Garden
      • The Indian Clerk, a novel by David Leavitt about the personal and professional relationship between mathematicians Srinivasa Ramanujan and G.H. Hardy, takes place during this decade with World War I and colonial India as a backdrop.
    • Live-Action TV
  • Despite being used as an Expy for the Vietnam War in M*A*S*H (which ran about five times longer as a TV series than the war it alleged to depict was a 'hot' war) the Korean War/Conflict/Action is not only largely ignored in fiction but in Real Life as well. It's occasionally mentioned as a Backstory for elderly American veterans now that WWII vets are becoming thin on the ground.
  • The Spanish Civil War doesn't get a lot of play, except in Spain.
  • While the Japanese have numerous stories about the Sengoku and Bakumatsu eras, those periods of history are not well known outside the country. (The Last Samurai does not fit in either category and is not very historical anyway.
  • The Spanish Empire. You can even have entire book or movie sagas about pirates of the Spanish Main with no Spanish showing up ever.
    • Video Games
      • Spain plays a big role in the Uncharted Waters video game series.
      • Spain is also a playable civilization in the Civilization series for Civ4 and later.
    • Literature
      • Zorro anyone? (not to mention the numerous TV and film adaptations)
  • The Barbary Wars. You'd think people might be interested in a movie about the US Navy and Marine Corps fighting pirates, especially since it's the first war ever fought by the newly independent US. Overshadowed by the Napoleonic Wars.
    • Film
      • There is also Tripoli (1950) with John Payne and Maureen O'Hara as the Comtesse D'Arneau in the inevitable yashmak. Rather a dull affair.
    • Literature
      • They do get a mention in one of the Horatio Hornblower books, Hornblower and the Hotspur, where the Hotspur is moored in a harbor not far from the USS Constitution, which is on her way to deal with the Corsairs in Tripoli.
  • The Boer War. Are there even any British or South African movies that cover it?
    • Film
      • Breaker Morant is an Australian one.
      • In the 1960 version of The Time Machine, which is set in 1899, George (the time-traveler) is told that he should be coming up with inventions to help Britain in the Boer War, but he doesn't like the idea of creating machines which contribute to death and destruction. Obviously, it's a metaphor for the Cold War arms race.
    • Live Action TV
    • Western Animation
  • Other than an offhand mention in Citizen Kane the Spanish-American War (1898), hasn't appeared very often.
    • Doubly obnoxious because Kane was significantly based on William Randolph Hearst, who is sometimes credited for instigating the Spanish-American War. In fact, Kane is given a line ("you provide the prose poems, I'll provide the war"), which is quite similar to a line allegedly spoken by Hearst about the same war ("you furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war"). Oddly, Hearst is mentioned at a different point in the film, indicating that he still exists as himself in the Kaneverse.
  • Also highly glossed-over is the The Philippine–American War, which was a direct result of the Spanish-American War.
  • Maybe too modern, but the space programs post-Apollo. The Space Race from Sputnik to Apollo-Soyuz was only the first twenty years out of fifty, but that's when all the movies are set.
    • Film
      • Space Cowboys starring Clint Eastwood, James Garner, Billy Bob Thornton, and Donald Sutherland as four over-the-hill 1960's test pilots[4] recruited for a sensitive Space Shuttle mission.
  • Let's just say Latin American history and save a lot of space. But if we must go for details:
    • The Conquest process was longer and more difficult than it is often given credit for. Mayan uprisings continued for a long time and the Inca had a few words to say to the new white boys in town.
    • Colonial rule of Spain over the biggest part of the continent. This is even obscure in Latin America, as most countries just jump from colonization to independance war.
    • That little ordeal with a certain Simon Bolivar. I heard some wars were fought around there in the south.
    • Mexican history is pretty fucking surreal. There was a Mexican-french war. Seriously. And there was once a Mexican Empire. Twice, actually.
    • The Cuban Revolution. Who was that t-shirt dude again? Also the Cuban Independance from Spain, which happened until the beginning of the last century.
    • The dictatorial regimes in most of Latin America during the Cold War. There is barely any country where nothing interesting happened. The Salvador Allende coup d'etat in Chile, the Tlaltelolco Massacre in Mexico, the Sendero Luminoso terrorist attacks in Peru, the opressive dictadure in Argentina (and Uruguay, and Brazil and several other countries) and the extremely bloody conflicts in Central America, such as the genocides in Guatemala under Lucas and Rios Montt, El Salvador and Nicaragua. A lot of this are just recently starting to be studied on their home countries. Though the thing is, the main villain in a lot of this stories is often regarded to actually be the US itself as they are blamed for helping regimes and savotaging ellections when the countries ellected communist sympathizers which makes it all more morally confusing if we are keeping the civil terms. So maybe Hollywood is not really interested.
  • Angola, Somalia, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, the Rhodesia Bush War, or really and proxy war that involved the US/China/USSR that wasn't Vietnam.
  1. ↑ And by 'Europeans", we mean empire-builders. Nobody but Farley Mowat cares about the Norsemen's presence in North America a half-millennium before Columbus, despite the archaeological evidence that they lived in Newfoundland and Inuit stories that they made it further into the continent.
  2. ↑ A play on the idiom "drinking to brotherhood", a Russian customary rite by which two men acknowledge each other as "brothers" after simultaneously downing a glass of vodka in a certain manner. The title literally means "dying to brotherhood" and refers to the two protagonists of the series (a German and a Russian) drinking (supposedly poisoned drinks) to brotherhood in the end of book one.
  3. ↑ Eastwood himself served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, but did not see combat.
  4. ↑ and probable Korean War veterans, to address another forgotten era
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